Museums: Managers of Consciousness

By Hans Haacke. ( No citation, sorry, I lent my copy and it
walked... )

The art world as a whole, and museums in particular, belong to
what has aptly been called the "consciousness industry." More than
twenty years ago, the German writer Hans Magnus Enzensberger gave
us some insight into the nature of this industry in an article
which used that phrase as its title. Although he did not
specifically elaborate on the art world, his article did refer to
it in passing. It seems worthwhile here to extrapolate from and to
expand upon Enzensberger's thoughts for a discussion of the role
museums and other art-exhibiting institutions play.

Like Enzensberger, I believe the use of the term "industry" for
the entire range of activities of those who are employed or working
on a freelance basis in the art field has a salutary effect. With
one stroke that term cuts through the romantic clouds that envelop
the often misleading and mythical notions widely held about the
production, distribution, and consumption of art. Artists, as much
as galleries, museums, and journalists (not excluding art
historians), hesitate to discuss the industrial aspect of their
activities. An unequivocal acknowledgment might endanger the
cherished romantic ideas with which most art world participants
enter the field, and which still sustain them emotionally today.
Supplanting the traditional bohemian image of the art world with
that of a business operation could also negatively affect the
marketability of its products and interfere with fundraising
efforts. Those who in fact plan and execute industrial strategies
tend, whether by inclination or need, to mystify art and conceal
its industrial aspects and often fall for their own propaganda.
Given the prevalent marketability of myths, it may sound almost
sacrilegious to insist on using the term "industry."

On the other hand, a new breed has recently appeared on the
industrial landscape: the arts managers. Trained by prestigious
business schools, they are convinced that art can and should be
managed like the production and marketing of other goods. They make
no apologies and have few romantic hang-ups. They do not blush in
assessing the receptivity and potential development of an audience
for their product. As a natural part of their education, they are
conversant with budgeting, investment, and price-setting
strategies. They have studied organization goals, managerial
structures, and the peculiar social and political environment of
their organization. Even the intricacies of labor relation and the
ways in which interpersonal issues might affect the organization
are part of their curriculum.

Of course, all these and other skills have been employed for
decades by art-world denizens of the old school. Instead of
enrolling in arts administration courses taught according to the
Harvard Business School's case method, they have learned their
skills on the job. Following their instincts, they have often been
more successful managers than the new graduates promise to be,
since the latter are mainly taught by professors with little or no
direct knowledge of the peculiarities of the art world.
Traditionally, however, the old-timers are shy in admitting to
themselves and others the industrial character of their activities
and most still do not view themselves as managers. It is to be
expected that the lack of delusions and aspirations among the new
art administrators will have a noticeable impact on the state of
the industry. Being trained primarily as technocrats, they are less
likely to have an emotional attachment to the peculiar nature of
the product they are promoting. And this attitude, in turn, will
have an effect on the type of products we will soon begin to
see.

My insistence on the term "industry" is not motivated by
sympathy for the new technocrats. As a matter of fact, I have
serious reservations about their training, the mentality it
fosters, and the consequences it will have. What the emergence of
arts administration departments in business schools demonstrates,
however, is the fact that in spite of the mystique surrounding the
production and distribution of art, we are now-and indeed have been
all along-dealing with social organizations that follow industrial
modes of operation, ranging in size from the cottage industry to
national and multinational conglomerates. Supervisory boards are
becoming aware of this fact. Given current financial problems, they
try to streamline their operation. Consequently, the present
director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York has a management
background, and the boards of trustees of other U.S. museums have
or are planning to split the position of director into that of a
business manager and an artistic director. The Metropolitan Museum
in New York is one case where this split has already occurred. The
debate often centers merely on which of the two executives should
and will in fact have the last word.

Traditionally, the boards of trustees of U.S. museums are
dominated by members who come from the world of business and high
finance. The board is legally responsible for the institution and
consequently the trustees are the ultimate authority. Thus the
business mentality has always been conspicuously strong at the
decision-making level of private museums in the United States.
However, the state of affairs is not essentially different in
public museums in other parts of the world. Whether the directors
have an art-historical background or not, they perform, in fact,
the tasks of the chief executive officer of a business
organization. Like their peers in other industries, they prepare
budgets and development plans and present them for approval to
their respective public supervising bodies and funding
agencies.

The staging of an international exhibition such as a Biennale or
a Documenta presents a major managerial challenge with
repercussions not only for what is being managed, but also for the
future career of the executive in charge. Responding to a realistic
appraisal of their lot, even artists are now acquiring managerial
training in workshops funded by public agencies in the United
States Such sessions are usually well attended, as artists
recognize that the managerial skills for running a small business
could have a bearing on their own survival. Some of the more
successful artists employ their own business managers. As for art
dealers, it goes without saying that they are engaged in running
businesses. The success of their enterprises and the future of the
artists in their stables obviously depend a great deal on their
managerial skills. They are assisted by paid advisors, accountants,
lawyers, and public relations agents. In turn, collectors often do
their collecting with the assistance of a paid staff.

At least in passing, I should mention that numerous other
industries depend on the economic vitality of the art branch of the
consciousness industry. Arts administrators do not exaggerate when
they defend their claims for public support by pointing to the
number of jobs that are affected not only in their own
institutions, but also in communications and, particularly, in the
hotel and restaurant industries. The Tut show at the Metropolitan
Museum is estimated to have generated $111 million for the economy
of New York City. In New York and possibly elsewhere, real-estate
speculators follow with great interest the move of artists into
low-rent commercial and residential areas. From experience they
know that artists unwittingly open these areas for gentrification
and lucrative development. New York's Soho district is a striking
example. Mayor Koch, always a friend to the realtors who stuff his
campaign chest, tried recently to plant artists into particular
streets on the Lower East Side to accomplish what is
euphemistically called the "rehabilitation" of a neighborhood, but
what in fact means squeezing out an indigenous poor population in
order to attract developers of high-rent housing. The Terminal Show
was a brainchild of the city's Public Development Corporation; it
was meant to draw attention to the industrial potential of the
former Brooklyn Army Terminal building. And the Museum of Modern
Art, having erected a luxury apartment tower over its own building,
is also now actively involved in real estate.

Elsewhere, city governments have recognized the importance of
the art industry. The city of Hannover in West Germany, for
example, sponsored several widely publicized art events in an
attempt to improve its dull image. As large corporation point to
the cultural life of their location in order to attract
sophisticated personnel, so Hannover speculated that the outlay for
art would be amortized many times by the attraction the city would
gain for businesses seeking sites for relocation. It is
well-documented that Documenta is held in an out-of-the-way place
like Kassel and given economic support by the city, state, and
federal government because it was assumed that Kassel would be put
on the map by an international art exhibition. It was hoped that
the event would revitalize the economically depressed region close
to the German border and that it would prop up the local tourist
industry. Another German example of the way in which direct
industrial benefits flow from investment in art may be seen in the
activities of the collector Peter Ludwig. It is widely believed
that the motive behind his buying a large chunk of
government-sanctioned Soviet art and displaying it in "his" museums
was to open the Soviet market for his chocolate company. Ludwig may
have risked his reputation as a connoisseur of art, but by buying
into the Soviet consciousness industry he proved his taste for
sweet deals. More recently, Ludwig recapitalized his company by
selling a collection of medieval manuscripts to the J. Paul Getty
Museum for and estimated price of $40 to $60 million. As a shrewd
businessman, Ludwig used the money to establish a foundation that
owns shares in his company. Thus the income from this capital
remains untaxed and, in effect, the ordinary taxpayer winds up
subsidizing Ludwig's power ambitions in the art world.

Aside from the reasons already mention, the discomfort in
applying industrial nomenclature to works of art may also have to
do with the fact that these products are not entirely physical in
nature. Although transmitted in one material form or another, they
are developed in and by consciousness and have meaning only for
another consciousness. In addition, it is possible to argue over
the extent to which the physical object determines the manner in
which the receiver decodes it. Such interpretive work is in turn a
product of consciousness, performed gratis by each viewer but
potentially salable if undertaken by curators, historians, critics,
appraisers, teachers, etc. The hesitancy to use industrial concepts
and language can probably also be attributed to our lingering
idealist tradition, which associates such work with the "spirit," a
term with religious overtones and one that indicates the avoidance
of mundane considerations.

The tax authorities, however, have no compunction in assessing
the income derived from the "spiritual" activities. Conversely, the
taxpayers so affect do not shy away from deducting relevant
business expenses. They normally protest against tax rulings which
declare their work to be nothing but a hobby, or to put it in
Kantian terms, the pursuit of "disinterested pleasure." Economists
consider the consciousness industry as part of the ever-growing
service sector and include it as a matter of course in the
computation of the gross national product.

The product of the consciousness industry, however, is not only
elusive because of its seemingly nonsecular nature and its aspects
of intangibility. More disconcerting, perhaps, is the fact that we
do not even totally command our individual consciousness. As Karl
Marx observed in The German Ideology, consciousness is a social
product. It is, in fact, not our private property, homegrown and
home to retire to. It is the result of a collective historical
endeavor, embedded in and reflecting particular value system,
aspiration, and goals. And these do not by any means represent the
interests of everybody. Nor are we dealing with a universally
accepted body of knowledge or beliefs. Word has gotten around that
material conditions and the ideological context in which an
individual grows up and lives determines to a considerable extent
his or her consciousness. As has been pointed out (and not only by
Marxists social scientists and psychologists), consciousness is not
a pure, independent, value-free entity, evolving according to
internal, self-sufficient, and universal rules. It is contingent, a
battleground of conflicting interests. Correspondingly, the
products of consciousness represent interests and interpretation of
the world that are potentially at odds with each other. The
products of the means of production, like those means themselves,
are not neutral. As they were shaped by their respective
environments and social relation, so do they in turn influence our
view of the human condition.

Currently we are witnessing a great retreat to the private cocoon. We see
a lot of noncommittal, sometimes cynical playing on naively
perceived social forces, along with other forms of contemporary
dandyism and updated versions of art for art's sake. Some artists
and promoters may reject any commitment and refuse to accept the
notion that their work presents a point of view beyond itself or
that it fosters certain attitudes; nevertheless, as soon as work
enjoys larger exposure it inevitably participates in public
discourse, advances particular systems of belief, and has
reverberation in the social arena. At that point, art works are no
longer a private affair. The producer and the distributor must then
weigh the impact.

But it is important to recognize that the codes employed by
artists are often not as clear and unambiguous as those in other
fields of communication. Controlled ambiguity may, in fact, be one
of the characteristics of much Western art since the Renaissance.
It is not uncommon that messages are received in a garbled,
distorted form; they may even relay the opposite of what was
intended (not to mention the kinds of creative confusion and
muddle-headedness that can accompany the art work's production). To
compound these problems, there are the historical contingencies of
the codes and the unavoidable biases of those who decipher them.
With so many variables, there is ample room for exegesis and a
livelihood is thus guaranteed for many workers in the consciousness
industry.

Although the product under discussion appears to be quite
slippery, it is by no means inconsequential, as cultural
functionaries from Moscow to Washington make clear every day. It is
recognized in both capitals that not only the mass media deserve
monitoring, but also those activities which are normally relegated
to special sections at the back of newspapers. The New York Times
calls it weekend section "Arts and Leisure" and covers under this
heading theater, dance, film, art, numismatics, gardening, and
other ostensibly harmless activities. Other papers carry these
items under equally innocuous titles, such as "culture,"
"entertainment," or "lifestyle." Why should governments, and for
that matter corporations which are not themselves in the
communications industry, pay attention to such seeming trivia? I
think they do so for good reason. They have understood, sometimes
better than the people who work in the leisure suits of culture,
that the term "culture" camouflages the social and political
consequences resulting from the industrial distribution of
consciousness.

The channeling of consciousness is pervasive not only under
dictatorships, but also in liberal societies. To make such an
assertion may sound outrageous because according to popular myth,
liberal regimes do not behave this way. Such an assertion could
also be misunderstood as an attempt to downplay the brutality with
which mainstream conduct is enforced in totalitarian regimes, or as
a claim that coercion of the same viciousness is practiced
elsewhere as well. In nondictatorial societies, the induction into
and the maintenance of a particular way of thinking and seeing must
be performed with subtlety in order to succeed. Staying within the
acceptable range of divergent views must be perceived as the
natural thing to do.

Within the art world, museums and other institutions that stage
exhibitions play an important role in the inculcation of opinions
and attitudes. Indeed, they usually present themselves as
educational organizations and consider education as one of their
primary responsibilities. Naturally, museums work in the vineyards
of consciousness. To state that obvious fact, however, is not an
accusation of devious conduct. An institution's intellectual and
moral position becomes tenuous only if it claims to be free of
ideological bias. And such an institution should be challenged if
it refuses to acknowledge that it operates under constraints
deriving from its sources of funding and from the authority to
which it reports.

It is perhaps not surprising that many museums indignantly
reject the notion that they provide a biased view of the works in
their custody. Indeed, museums usually claim to subscribe to the
canons of impartial scholarship. As honorable as such and endeavor
is-and it is still a valid goal to strive for-it suffers from
idealist delusions about the nonpartisan character of
consciousness. A theoretical prop for this worthy but untenable
position is the nineteenth-century doctrine of art for art's sake.
That doctrine has an avant-garde historical veneer and in its time
did perform a liberating role. Even today, in countries where
artists are openly compelled to serve prescribed policies, it still
has and emancipatory ring. The gospel of art for art's sake
isolates art and postulates its self-sufficiency, as if art had or
followed rules which are impervious to the social environment.
Adherents of the doctrine believe that art does not and should not
reflect the squabbles of the day. Obviously they are mistaken in
their assumption that products of consciousness can be created in
isolation. Their stance and what is crafted under its auspices have
not only theoretical but also definite social implications.
American formalism updated the doctrine and associated it with the
political concepts of the "free world" and individualism. Under
Clement Greenberg's tutelage, everything that made worldly
references was simply excommunicated from art so as to shield the
Grail of taste from contamination. What began as a liberating drive
turned into its opposite. The doctrine now provides museums with an
alibi for ignoring the ideological aspects of art works and the
equally ideological implications of the way those works are
presented to the public. Whether such neutralizing is performed
with deliberation or merely out of habit or lack of resources is
irrelevant: practiced over many years it constitutes a powerful
form of indoctrination.

Every museum is perforce a political institution, no matter
whether it is privately run or maintained and supervised by
governmental agencies. Those who hold the purse strings and have
the authority over hiring and firing are, in effect, in charge of
every element of the organization, if they choose to use their
powers. While the rule of the boards of trustees of museums in the
United States is generally uncontested, the supervisory bodies of
public institutions elsewhere have to contend much more with public
opinion and the prevailing political climate. It follows that
political considerations play a role in the appointment of museum
directors. Once they are in office and have civil service status
with tenure, such officials often enjoy more independence than
their colleagues in the United States, who can be dismissed from
one day to the next, as occurred with Bates Lowry and John
Hightower at the Museum of Modern Art within a few years time. But
it is advisable, of course, to be a political animal in both
settings. Funding, as much as one's prospect for promotion to more
prestigious posts, depends on how well one can play the game.

Directors in private U.S. museums need to be attuned primarily
to the frame of mind represented by the Wall Street Journal, the
daily source of edification of the board members. They are affected
less by who happens to be the occupant of the White House or the
mayor's office, although this is not totally irrelevant for the
success of applications for public grants. In other countries the
outcome of elections can have a direct bearing on museum policies.
Agility in dealing with political parties, possibly even membership
in a party, can be an asset. The arrival of Margaret Thatcher in
Downing Street and of Francois Mitterand at the Elysee noticeably
affect the art institutions in their respective countries. Whether
in private or in public museums, disregard of political realities,
among them the political needs of the supervising bodies and the
ideological complexion of their members, is a guarantee of
managerial failure.

It is usually required that, at least to the public,
institutions appear nonpartisan. This does not exclude the sub rosa
promotion of the interests of the ultimate boss. As in other walks
of life, the consciousness industry also knows the hidden agenda
which is more likely to succeed if it is not perceived as such. It
would be wrong, however, to assume that the objective and the
mentality of every art executive are or should be at odds with
those on whose support his organization depends. There are natural
and honorable allegiances as much as there are forced marriages and
marriages of convenience. All players, though, usually see to it
that the serene facade of the art temple is preserved.

During the past twenty years, the power relations between art
institutions and their sources of funding have become more complex.
Museums have to be maintained either by public agencies-the
tradition in Europe-or through donations from private individuals
and philanthropic organizations, as has been the pattern in the
United States. When Congress established the National Endowment for
the Arts in 1965, U.S. museums gained an additional source of
funding. In accepting public grants, however, they became
accountable-even if in practice only to a limited degree-to
government agencies.

Some public museums in Europe went the road of mixed support,
too, although in the opposite direction. Private donors came on
board with attractive collections. As has been customary in U.S.
museums, however, some of these donors demanded a part in policy
making. One of the most spectacular recent examples has been the de
facto takeover of museums (among others, museums in Cologne,
Vienna, and Aachen) that received or believed they would receive
gifts from the German collector Peter Ludwig. As is well known in
the Rhineland, Count Panza di Biumo's attempt to get his way in the
new museum of Mönchengladbach, down the Rhine from Ludwig's
headquarters, was successfully rebuffed by the director, Johannes
Cladders, who is both resolute and a good poker player in his own
right. How far the Saatchis in London will get in dominating the
Tate Gallery's Patrons of New Art-and thereby the museum's policies
for contemporary art-is currently watched with the same fascination
and nervousness as developments in the Kremlin. A recent,
much-noticed instance of Saatchi influence was the Tate's 1982
Schnabel show, which consisted almost entirely of works from the
Saatchis' collection. In addition to his position on the steering
committee of the Tate's Patrons of New Art, Charles Saatchi is also
a trustee of the Whitechapel Gallery. Furthermore, the Saatchis'
advertising agency has just begun handling publicity for the
Victoria and Albert, the Royal Academy, the National Portrait
Gallery, the Serpentine Gallery, and the British Crafts Council.
Certainly the election victory of Mrs. Thatcher, in which the
Saatchis played a part as the advertising agency of the
Conservative Party, did not weaken their position (and may in turn
have provided the Conservatives with a powerful agent within the
hallowed halls of the Tate).

If such collectors seem to be acting primarily in their own
self-interest and to be building pyramids to themselves when they
attempt to impose their will on "chosen" institutions, their moves
are in fact less troublesome in the long run than the disconcerting
arrival on the scene of corporate funding for the arts-even though
the latter at first appears to be more innocuous. Starting on a
large scale towards the end of the 1960s in the United States and
expanding rapidly ever since, corporate funding has spread during
the last five years to Britain and the Continent. Ambitious
exhibition programs that could not be financed through traditional
sources led museums to turn to corporations for support. The
larger, more lavishly appointed these shows and their catalogues
became, however, the more glamour the audiences began to expect. In
an ever-advancing spiral the public was made to believe that only
Hollywood-style extravaganzas were worth seeing and that only they
could give an accurate sense of the world of art. The resulting
box-office pressure made the museums still more dependent on
corporate funding. Then came the recessions of the 1970s and 1980s.
Many individual donors could no longer contribute at the accustomed
rate, and inflation eroded the purchasing power of funds. To
compound the financial problems, many governments, facing huge
deficits-often due to sizable expansion of military budgets-cut
their support for social services as well as their arts funding.
Again museums felt they had no choice but to turn to corporations
for a bail-out. Following their own ideological inclinations and
making them national policy, President Reagan and Mrs. Thatcher
encouraged the so-called private sector to pick up the slack in
financial support.

Why have business executives been receptive to the museums'
pleas for money? During the restive Sixties the more astute ones
began to understand that corporate involvement in the arts is too
important to be left to the chairman's wife. Irrespective of their
own love for or indifference towards art, they recognized that a
company's association with art could yield benefits far out of
proportion to a specific financial investment. Not only could such
a policy attract sophisticated personnel, but it also projected an
image of the company as a good corporate citizen and advertised its
products-all things which impress investors. Executives with a
longer vision also saw that the association of their company (and,
by implication, of business in general) with the high prestige of
art was a subtle but effective means for lobbying in the corridors
of government. It could open doors, facilitate passage of favorable
legislation, and serve as a shield against scrutiny and criticism
of corporate conduct.

Museums, of course, are not blind to the attraction for business
of lobbying through art. For example, in a pamphlet with the
telling title "The Business Behind Art Knows the Art of Good
Business," the Metropolitan Museum in New York woos prospective
corporate sponsors by assuring them: "Many public relations
opportunities are available through the sponsorship of programs,
special exhibitions and services. These can often provide a
creative and cost-effective answer to a specific marketing
objective, particularly where international, governmental or
consumer relations may be a fundamental concern."

A public relations executive of Mobil in New York aptly called
the company's art support a "good will umbrella," and his colleague
from Exxon referred to it as a "social lubricant." It is liberals
in particular who need to be greased, because they are the most
likely and sophisticated critics of corporations and they are often
in positions of influence. They also happen to be more interested
in culture than other groups on the political spectrum. Luke
Rittner, who as outgoing director of the British Association of
Business Sponsorship of the Arts should know, recently explained:
"A few years ago companies thought sponsoring the arts was
charitable. Now they realize there is also another aspect; it is a
tool they can use for corporate promotion in one form or anther."
Rittner, obviously in tune with his prime minister, has been
appointed the new secretary general on the British Arts Council.
Corporate public relations officers know that the greatest
publicity benefits can be derived from high-visibility events,
shows that draw crowds and are covered extensively by the popular
media; these are shows that are based on and create myths-in short,
blockbusters. As long as an institution is not squeamish about
company involvement in press releases, posters, advertisements, and
its exhibition catalogue, its grant proposal for such an
extravaganza is likely to be examined with sympathy. Some companies
are happy to underwrite publicity for the event (which usually
includes the company logo), at a rate almost matching the funds
they make available for the exhibition itself. Generally, such
companies look for events that are "exciting," a word that pops up
in museum press releases and catalogue prefaces more often than any
other.

Museum managers have learned, of course, what kind of shows are
likely to attract corporate funding. And they also know that they
have to keep their institution in the limelight. Most shows in
large New York museums are now sponsored by corporations.
Institutions in London will soon be catching up with them. The
Whitney Museum has even gone one step further. It has established
branches-almost literally a merger-on the premises of two
companies. It is fair to assume that exhibition proposals that do
not fulfill the necessary criteria for corporate sponsorship risk
not being considered, and we never hear about them. Certainly,
shows that could promote critical awareness, present products of
consciousness dialectically and in relation to the social world, or
question relations of power have a slim chance of being
approved-not only because they are unlikely to attract corporate
funding, but also because they could sour relations with potential
sponsors for other shows. Consequently, self-censorship is having a
boom. Without exerting any direct pressure, corporations have
effectively gained a veto in museums, even though their financial
contribution often covers only a fraction of the costs of an
exhibition. Depending on circumstances, these contributions are
tax-deductible as a business expense or a charitable contribution.
Ordinary taxpayers are thus footing part of the bill. In effect,
they are unwitting sponsors of private corporate policies, which in
many cases, are detrimental to their health and safety, the general
welfare, and in conflict with their personal ethics.

Since the corporate blanket is so warm, glaring examples of
direct interference rare, and the increasing dominance of the
museums' development offices hard to trace, the change of climate
is hardly perceived, nor is it taken as a threat. To say that this
change might have consequences beyond the confines of the
institution and that it affects the type of art that is and will be
produced therefore can sound like over-dramatization. Through
naiveté, need, or addiction to corporate financing, museums
are now on the slippery road to becoming public relations agents
for the interests of big business and its ideological allies. The
adjustments that museums make in the selection and promotion of
works for exhibition and in the way they present them create a
climate that supports prevailing distribution of power and capital
and persuades the populace that the status quo is the natural and
best order of things. Rather than sponsoring intelligent, critical
awareness, museums thus tend to foster appeasement.

Those engaged in collaboration with the public relations
officers of companies rarely see themselves as promoters of
acquiescence. On the contrary, they are usually convinced that
their activities are in the best interests of art. Such a
well-intentioned delusion can survive only as long as art is
perceived as a mythical entity above mundane interests and
ideological conflict. And it is, of course, this misunderstanding
of the role that products of the consciousness industry play which
constitutes the indispensable base for all corporate strategies of
persuasion.

Whether museums contend with governments, power-trips of
individuals, or the corporate steamroller, they are in the business
of molding and channeling consciousness. Even though they may not
agree with the system of beliefs dominant at the time, their
options not to subscribe to them and instead to promote an
alternative consciousness are limited. The survival of the
institution and personal careers are often at stake. But in
non-dictatorial societies, the means of the production of
consciousness are not all in one hand. The sophistication required
to promote a particular interpretation of the work is potentially
also available to question that interpretation and to offer other
versions. As the need to spend enormous sums for public relations
and government propaganda indicates, things are not frozen.
Political constellations shift and unincorporated zones exist in
sufficient numbers to disturb the mainstream.

It was never easy for museums to preserve or regain a degree of
maneuverability and intellectual integrity . It takes stealth,
intelligence, determination-and some luck. But a democratic society
demands nothing less than that.